She drove Andre back to the house as soon as their meal was over. He talked little during the fifteen-minute drive, his gaze fixed on the rain beyond her Explorer’s window, his fingers laced in his lap. Then, as Merry mounted Cobblestone Hill, he said, “A significant number of New York’s homeless are refugees from war-torn places, Detective. I had planned to do a lot of good through Spence’s foundation.”
“Maybe you still can,” Merry suggested. “You have a long relationship with the proposed director. She’ll need places to put her funds.”
Andre smiled. “And even if the director’s agenda differs from mine—there are always ways to do good. I’ll just have to be more creative, that’s all.”
Merry recognized that Andre had admitted a motive for Spencer Murphy’s murder. He had expected to be named head of a charitable organization that would have raised the profile of his work among the homeless, and his professional reputation throughout New York City. Moreover, as foundation director he might have found a way to save Step Above from immediate sale—perhaps by defining it as an appreciable asset within the charity’s endowment. Who knew what plans for the house he might have formed with Elliot, plans that might have lessened the sting of his partner’s disinheritance? But none of that was possible, now.
Merry did not ask herself whether the genial Andre was capable of murder. In her experience, almost everyone was—provided the circumstances were enticing or threatening enough.
“They’re back,” he said as she pulled into the drive at 32 Lincoln. A black Audi was parked in front of the door. When Andre turned to thank her, Merry said, “I’d like to come in for a moment and talk to David Murphy. Would you be kind enough to tell him?”
“Of course.”
She followed him into the house. “Thanks. I’ll wait here in the hall.”
The Westie, MacTavish, ran frisking to greet Andre and stood on his hind legs to busk Merry’s knee. She rubbed his shaggy head. She had visited the place enough that he recognized her scent; in Tav’s mind, she was a friend. Few of the other occupants of the house would view her that way.
Andre went in search of David. Merry released the dog and walked over to the main stairs. They were one of the oldest features of the house, straight and steeply pitched with no landing. Laney had said that she could see her father walking down the back hallway to Spence’s bedroom Sunday night from the steps. She hadn’t lied. The doorway to Spence’s office was visible from the third step when Merry mounted it. There, the back hallway made a sharp turn and David would have disappeared from view as Laney went up the stairs.
The dog was still at Merry’s feet, and with his head cocked, was inviting her to follow him to the second floor. She led Tav back to the doorway and rubbed his chest.
“Morning,” David Murphy said.
He had come from the kitchen. His expression was as shuttered as usual, no more nor less. If the provisions of the will had shocked or angered him, he had mastered his emotions. David would make a formidable adversary in court, Merry decided; he gave nothing away.
“I’d like to talk to you privately about the disposition of your father’s estate. Perhaps in his office?”
“Certainly.”
He led her to the small room and sat, as he had once before, in Spencer’s chair. She drew a side chair up to the desk and opened her laptop.
“I met with Alice Abernathy this morning. She explained your father’s will.”
“I see.”
“Could you tell me, please, in what way the present document differs from the will you previously drew up for him?”
“I’m not sure it matters. That document is now moot.”
“Unless you decide to fight the new one in court.” Merry smiled at him over her computer screen. “And given that a number of you in this household cannot have known that your father had a new will on the night he was killed, the previous document is very much a part of this murder investigation. People have been known to kill for an expected inheritance—whether they receive it or not.”
David sighed. “The will in my possession—the one I was prepared to execute—had very different provisions. There was no trust, no establishment of a foundation. My father’s assets and this house were to be divided equally between Elliot and me.”
“And the value of those assets?”
David hesitated. “Well, my valuation of the house is only a guess. Maybe fifteen million, solely because of the lot. The structure’s not in great shape. Anyone buying the place would raze or renovate it.”
Merry shuddered inwardly at the thought of the battles either would entail with the historic preservation board. “You planned to sell?”
“I did. Elliot wanted to keep the house—I told him he’d have to buy me out.”
Families, Merry reflected, had been destroyed for less.
“And the value of the rest of your father’s estate?”
“That fluctuates, according to market,” David said vaguely.
“Where are those assets at present, Mr. Murphy? Invested? In a bank?”
“Both.”
He was plainly uninterested in sharing financial information.
“Alice Abernathy suggested the estate could be worth as much as thirty million, altogether.”
“I’m not sure where she got that figure.”
“From Spencer, I would assume.”
“But as we know,” David said, “his mind was failing.”
“Which is one reason you had power of attorney,” Merry added helpfully. “So that you could handle his accounts. Pay his bills. Did you handle his investments, too?”
“Why do you feel compelled to ask, Detective? You’re investigating my father’s murder, not his financial health. He was an old man. He’d lived a long time on his laurels. He had made money, sure—but he’d spent it, too. The taxes on this house alone are killing. And he was hurt by the economic downturn in 2008.”
Merry clicked on her screen. She was looking for the email summary of the Murphy background checks Howie Seitz had sent her forty-five minutes ago, while she was happily eating at the Downyflake. “A lot of us suffered in the downturn. Let’s talk about Cape Wind.”
“I’m sorry?” David said, startled.
“Cape Wind. The private development company whose goal was to construct the first major wind farm off the United States, here in Nantucket Sound. It ran into some snags.”
“It did. What has that got to do with my father?”
“You tell me, David.” Merry looked at him blandly. “Most of the two billion in financing Cape Wind needed was from major underwriters—the Bank of Tokyo, a Danish pension fund, a Dutch private equity firm. You’re a securities lawyer. You’re not Cape Wind’s lawyer—but you knew people there.”
“I know many people in a professional capacity all over the country.”
“Exactly.” Merry nodded, as though he were a star pupil. “You organized a consortium—a group of twelve individual investors who pooled their funds. You sank a lot of that fund—something close to fifty million all told—into Cape Wind. You thought clean energy was the future and that wind power was inevitable in Massachusetts, where there are no fossil fuels to speak of and natural gas is expensive as hell. You wanted to be in on the ground floor. But then the downturn hit, didn’t it? Cape Wind stalled during the recession; clean energy was a nice idea, but less of a state or federal priority when people were out of work and tax dollars were tight. Your consortium lost money. Some of the investors were clients. Some were friends. One was your brother, Elliot.”
David didn’t speak. He was sitting very still in his chair.
“You must have been thrilled, a few years ago, when it looked like Cape Wind was turning around—that they’d get the green light to start construction.”
“I was,” he said.
“Is that when you stole money from your father, in the hope of earning back your investors’ stake?”
“I didn’t—it wasn’t—”
“Stealing,” Merry finished. “It was borrowing, right? Against your own future inheritance? And no one would even know, once the return from Cape Wind came in. Spence would live for years. You’d have time to put it all back. With interest.”
David cleared his throat. The sound was painful, as though years of emotion had hardened in his larynx. “It wasn’t borrowing. Or stealing. It was investing. I had the authority to invest Spence’s funds.”
“In something he would never have approved? Your daughter told me he hated the wind farm project. It was going to ruin his view. He wrote editorials going back for years, in the Inky Mirror. Am I wrong?”
“You’re not wrong. Dad lived in the past. He wasn’t a business man.”
“Unlike you.”
David’s eyelids flickered. “It was totally unforeseen that the major energy companies would walk away from their contracts to buy Cape Wind’s product. Or that the legislature would kill the wind farm. Or bar Cape Wind from bidding on future projects. Nobody could have known.”
“Nobody could have known that Spence would draft a new will, either,” Merry said. “One more question, David. When you checked on your father after the fireworks Sunday night, was he dead or alive?”
Kate Murphy had parted from the others as they walked out of Alice Abernathy’s office. It was impossible to get into the car with David and Elliot; she would walk by herself back to the house. She needed time alone, to hug the copy of the trust documents Alice had given her close against her rain jacket. She had felt David’s rage flaring along the brick sidewalk behind her like a rippling flame. She could still see the abyss of shock that had opened in Elliot’s face as he’d listened to the lawyer’s calm explanation that he could expect nothing from his father. She could not combat either David’s anger or Elliot’s questions right now. Even the bewildered Laney must wait until later.
I should get on a plane for New York tonight, she thought. Get away from all of them before they destroy me.
But for a few moments she wanted to glory in her surprise and giddiness entirely by herself. Only it would be nice, she thought, if she could share her joy with someone. Maybe Laney—but Laney would want to talk about David, and how impossible he would be to live with, now. She would be drowning in anxiety. Andre would be happy for her, of course, but it would be awkward to talk at Step Above. His attention would be on Elliot.
The image of Nora’s face as she had last seen her—raising a glass to toast them both in Brooklyn a few months before—rose for an instant in Kate’s mind. She closed her eyes and whispered to the shimmering ghost: Thank you.
She would definitely leave for New York tonight.
When she opened her eyes, she realized that she was entirely alone on Union Street and that the rain had increased. She hurried toward town, water splashing from the wet bricks into her flat shoes, the manila envelope full of papers shielded inside her jacket. By the time she reached Main Street her gray hair was dark and streaming with wet. She ducked hurriedly into the Fog Island Café and bought a large hot coffee.
Then she opened the file and began to study her inheritance.
When Merry walked out to her car, she found Laney sitting on the front steps, waiting for her.
“Any idea where your mom is?” she asked the girl.
“She wanted to walk home from the lawyer’s. She said she needed time alone.”
“I see.” Merry handed Laney her card. “Please give her this when she gets back, and ask her to call.”
Laney stood up and dusted the seat of her pants. There had never been a moment since they’d met, Merry thought, when the girl hadn’t looked worried. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.”
“It’s about my mom, actually . . .”